


Children of the Leaf

by DawningStar



Category: Dreaming of Sunshine - Silver Queen
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Inspired by Fanfiction, Silver Queen's Dreaming of Sunshine Universe, pre!Kako
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 21:27:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19070998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DawningStar/pseuds/DawningStar
Summary: What if Shikako Nara, by a strange quirk of timeline, ended up in Tenzou's experimental batch...and survived?





	Children of the Leaf

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Dreaming of Sunshine](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/53648) by Silver Queen. 



Later, even when he calls himself Tenzou, he won’t remember his family or who he once was; not even Konoha’s best techniques will uncover that. 

(To be fair, his name won’t be the thing they really want to know.) 

This is what he remembers: floating trapped in green, rows of green tubes before him, drifting into sleep until the deep pulling ache in his bones drags him back awake. An itch deeper than skin, unreachable. 

The cold clinical voice of Orochimaru, taking notes. Noting death. 

They are small, nameless, they are numbered subjects, they obey Orochimaru or suffer the pain of failure. Fellow children die around them, one by one, five by five, ten by ten. Some simply stop moving. Some crack the glass of their tubes in their final death throes. 

Two faces are close enough for the boy to watch them, wave to them, hoping they won’t die. Two clouds of long hair, one golden through the green, the other dark as a shadow. His hopes don’t help; the golden hair drapes around the twisted glassy wreck of a misshapen sapling. 

He feels a raw pain crawling under his skin; the fluid in his lungs hurts, the restraints that surround him feel sharp. The whole lab feels dark and bitter. He wants…he hardly knows. Light? A hand to hold? 

He reaches out, reactions slow as mud, until his fingers press against the smooth glass. He can’t help a soft whimper. In these tubes they can’t speak, but they can hear. None of them ever want Orochimaru to notice them, but he’s not here now. 

The girl with the dark hair begins to hum a wordless melody. He’s heard it before in long empty nights when no one watches them. 

He hums the melody back to her when she pauses. The tubes in between, the tubes across, they used to hum as well, when they were awake. Some have been silent for days now...some for weeks. 

The dark underground lab is a black bitter mass but to him the girl is a lone point of comfort, a cool soothing shadow. 

All the other children are gone, so he can only assume it will be their turn next. But he doesn’t want to let go yet, not yet. 

Long ago he used to hold hands with the other children, didn’t he? When any of them could stretch an arm between cage bars, perhaps. Now there’s only one voice and he can’t even reach her. He wishes he could. 

He watches her hands shape gestures against the glass and wishes he understood. At least he can mimic her, to prove he’s still alive. 

But the drowsy green carries him away, over and over, and sometimes the girl is asleep and sometimes he watches terrified that this is the time she won’t ever respond again. 

He notices eventually that when anyone enters the lab of broken green vessels, the dark-haired girl withdraws, floating empty-eyed and limp, unmoving, the new-leaf shadow that feels like her curled away and hidden. He tries not to worry too much. If it makes her happy not to be noticed, they have so few joys here that he shouldn’t object. 

Somehow it hurts to feel her pull away, every time, even though so far she’s always reached out again to hum him to sleep at night. 

When Orochimaru and the bandaged man visit once more to discard every last dead and dying child as a failure, they dismiss the dark-haired girl; then again they also dismiss him, though he’s trying hard to remind them he’s not dead yet. Even if he’s a dying failure couldn’t they let him out of the tube for his last moments? 

No, it seems not. 

The girl looks at him once they are gone and begins to hum something fast-paced and encouraging. It’s sweet of her, even if it doesn’t make him feel any better. 

She offers a silent thumbs up across the gap of death and darkness. That’s one gesture he can’t misunderstand, even if he’s not convinced that it suits the situation in any way. He returns it anyway, because she’s alive and so is he and that’s worth some celebration even if they’re still trapped and dying. 

Her other hand moves from its place cupped near her mouth and she displays...something. He has to squint through the blur of liquid, the layers of glass, to see...a leaf. Tiny and pale green, the merest sprout. 

So many of the tubes have broken and died to uncontrolled growth that his first reaction is a sharp horror. But it doesn’t explode and kill her, it only adds a second leaf and stops as she grins widely at him. 

Orochimaru has talked a great deal about wood in the experimental process that killed all but two children. If the dark-haired girl can hide the fact that she’s not failing quite as badly as the rest, her fellow test subject certainly approves. 

He offers two thumbs up and the biggest smile he can muster, and hopes desperately that this growth will spare at least one of them. Her, if he can choose. 

He doesn’t want to be alone. 

The fear of being discarded and forgotten doesn’t hold quite as strong when he can see the girl with the swirling dark hair alive and straining to focus, fragile leaf clutched in her hand, when he can hear her humming in fierce concentration. If she survives she won’t forget him. Maybe he can focus, too, maybe the burning in his bones won’t turn him inside out like the others, if only he tries. He wouldn’t want to leave her alone either. 

When the heavy lab door opens again, spilling light through the damp green lab, it’s not Orochimaru, it’s only the bandaged man. 

In her green tube, the girl is very, very still. 

“One survivor?” the bandaged man murmurs, some odd speculation in his tone as he limps his slow way down the row of empty tubes, leaning on his cane. 

Two steps. Three. A blink. 

The lab implodes. 

(Much later, even after hours of patient questioning, he will never be able to describe quite how it happens.) 

Wall, ceiling, floor, they all existed before and now they do not; now enormous wooden shapes spear past one another from every angle, too many to see, too many to count. For a moment something about the place where the bandaged man had been seems to twist; the moving spears keep going, thud into the ground or the ceiling or the walls roughly opposite the place they started. 

None of them come anywhere near his glass tube, but all the others have been flung into the air, a rain of chiming pieces as they fall back to the ground. 

In the shadows of the lab, rubble moves and settles, chunks of gray dust and soil crumbling as the ceiling belatedly reacts to how much of itself is broken. 

At the center of the wooden spears, red blood drips...he looks away, searches terrified for the girl, because among the splintered glass her tube also shattered, splattering green fluid across the room. 

She’s a limp pale shape curled underneath one of the largest wooden spears, her dark hair a thin fallen veil, dripping. As he presses frightened hands to the glass that still traps him, he can’t tell if she’s breathing. 

He can’t bear to watch her die, the very last, alone on the floor without ever so much as the comfort of a hand to hold. He can’t— 

The tingling in his bones _shifts_ , a cool green pulse. Something erupts from his spine and tense muscles, foreign but strangely painless. 

Shattering glass—

His awkward lurch lands him out of his tube, on the cold ground covered in glistening shards. He doesn’t know how to breathe, coughing out liquid in painful heaves, air like knives. 

Darkness presses in. He might lose a moment, too weak to fight it. But he’s not dead yet and he can’t die here, not yet—he tests weak arms to drag himself a little closer to the girl, and tries, painfully, to at least hum one of her songs if he can’t reach her. 

It’s a pitiful tuneless effort but worth every hoarse scrape: she hums in answer, her voice as rough as his but alive. Alive. 

He struggles over the floor, sharp fragments lodging in his hands and elbows. Finally, he’s close enough to see her. His hand stretches, grasps, holds her warm fingers. 

She squeezes weakly back. “Listen,” she says at last, almost inaudible. Another sharp cough interrupts. “My name is...Kako Kinokawa.” 

A name! He presses it into his memory, hoping not to lose it like he seems to have lost everything, everyone else. 

“I think yours is Tenzou,” she adds, sounding much less certain. 

Is it? He coughs up a rattling bubble of fluid, examining the sound of the name. Words are there, in his head, even if his past isn’t. “I...don’t remember,” he admits. But if that’s the name she heard, he’ll accept it. Clearly her memory is better than his. “What happened?” Now that he’s capable of speaking, there are many things he would like to know. 

“He kidnapped me,” Kako says, pain and a cold terrible hatred weighing the words. “I couldn’t let...I, uh…” Her long trailing hair makes the glass shards chime as she turns her head. “Oops.” 

With no idea what the bandaged man might have done to earn it, Tenzou is happy to accept that as a reason from his fellow experimental subject; he does find himself wishing Orochimaru could have been first in line. 

Somewhere outside there are voices. For a girl who’s spent so much time avoiding attention, the unexpected strike couldn’t be called quiet. 

Tenzou can only hope the people who find them are kinder than those who held them last.

* * *

Drifting in and out of consciousness is a familiar feeling. However, waking flat on his back with something like a soft cushion under him is completely unique in Tenzou’s memory. Even the pains he expects are muted or gone, a distant itch. 

There’s a rustle of clothing, someone leaning over him. 

Wary, Tenzou stays limp, eyes closed. He’s not sure what to expect, and all experience suggests no adult will care for his opinion about it. 

“You’re all right, kid,” a woman’s voice murmurs in a peculiar soothing tone. No one Tenzou knows. That much is a relief, since he only knows the people who visited Orochimaru’s lab. “No one’s going to hurt you here.” 

Tenzou doesn’t think she has the authority to promise any such thing, although it sounds nice. 

“Wake up for me?” A hand settles lightly on his arm. 

He flinches away from the strange touch, his eyes jolting open in sudden need of reassurance. 

It’s not Orochimaru. Tenzou really is out of the tube, in a white room, blinking at a woman’s white uniform, with no green in sight. 

Also out of sight: Kako. Tenzou forces his head one way, then the other, hoping to see another bed or a cage or maybe a different model of glass tube. Nothing, nothing. His breath rasps shallow. “Where is she?” he forces through rusty lips. 

The woman takes a step back, raising her hands, not touching him, her forehead furrowed. “You mean the girl who was with you?” 

She has a name. If they don’t know her name, is Kako…? No. No. “Her name is Kako Kinokawa,” he insists, desperate enough to risk defiance. 

Her face goes pale to match the uniform. “Yoshino and Shikaku’s little girl?” The words are half-hushed. 

Tenzou can’t remember ever seeing a reaction quite like that. “Is she alive?” he pleads, bracing. He can’t believe what she says anyway, Kako has to be alive. 

“She’ll be just fine,” the woman says with a determination that takes Tenzou aback; it looks so much like his own. “The medics are still doing their best to help her, but I’ll make sure you get to see her as soon as possible.” 

Alive! He doesn’t trust these medics in the least but he’s pretty sure Kako can take them if she has to. What if it’s Orochimaru, though? “You won’t let Orochimaru hurt her again?” he pleads. 

Her eyes fix on him, an abrupt total focus. “Did he?” 

Tenzou watched the scientist work; it makes up a significant portion of what little he remembers. “He wanted...wood.” He can’t manage more than the tentative summary with his tongue dry and aching. 

In return for the news that Kako’s still alive he makes some attempt to answer the woman’s questions about Orochimaru, and about himself, though most of them end in admitting he has no idea. 

He can’t bear the idea of swallowing the sickly-sweet pale juice in the cup she offers, it reminds him of the tubes, but he leaves the cup near his mouth a while and she doesn’t force it down his throat. 

Those items complete, the woman rushes away with an undercurrent of tense excitement Tenzou doesn’t know how to interpret. She didn’t hurt him; he can’t complain. 

Who are the names she mentioned? Does Kako know them? If they couldn’t protect her from Orochimaru before, can they do better now? 

Weights drag at his eyelids, but he doesn’t want to sleep. Anyone could grab him, here, and he doesn’t even have the strength to roll over. There’s too much to think about, anyway, too much to watch. He’s never seen the shades of light through this door, or heard so many people talking in the distance. 

Time passes. Tenzou can’t say how much or whether he drifts to sleep against his will; his eyes close, sometimes. The voices come and go, none that make sense, and Kako still isn’t here. The longer he doesn’t see her, the harder it is to believe she’s alive. 

Sharper voices, suddenly, outside. Tenzou holds his breath to listen. 

“...breaking every protocol,” an older voice scolds, and adds, as though reluctant, “My Lord Hokage.” 

That term sounds familiar, but Tenzou can’t place it in context. A familiar feeling with his empty memory. Not one he likes. 

“Protocol has its place,” a different voice responds, a young man’s confident tone, “but this is an extraordinary situation. You may wait outside.” 

The door swings open. Tenzou blinks at the man’s bright yellow spikes of hair, the flame-patterned robe. He has no idea who this is. 

The blond man seems to be holding the door very politely for a lady with brown hair tied back, wearing pink. Once she’s through, he turns to place some kind of seal paper against the door. The voices outside instantly go silent. 

Tenzou isn’t sure what to expect of this attention, but he doesn’t think pretending to be asleep will do him any good. 

It’s the lady who speaks first, something grim and desperate in her eyes. “Please tell me everything you can about Kako Kinokawa.” 

Why do they want to know, why can’t they ask Kako? Fear stabs through him. “Is she alive?” 

“The girl from the lab will be all right,” the man promises. “She’s not awake yet, but she will be.” 

Tenzou isn’t sure whether to believe him. Can’t believe him, can’t disbelieve him, until he sees Kako safe and alive. She’s gone and he can’t help panicking. 

The woman holds out one hand, urgent appeal. “My name is Yoshino Kinokawa. Please...I need you to tell me about my daughter.” 

That...he can believe. Something in the shape of her chin is just like Kako; the sharp determination suits them both. “Kako has family?” he whispers, and smiles. Just a little, face stiff from lack of practice. That’s good. Kako deserves to have people who care about her. 

They couldn’t protect her before, but maybe she can protect them now. 

Yoshino smiles back, eyes bright with tears, pressing a hand against her stomach. “She does. Did she tell you her name?” 

Tenzou tilts his head, attempting a nod. “At the end.” Possibly that needs explanation. “We couldn’t talk.” Not behind the glass, not trapped in liquid and darkness. “She used to hum…” His eyes burn hot. Blinking hard doesn’t seem to help. “We would hum back, until we...stopped.” Broken glass, twisted wood. Silence. “We watched them die, all of them. Except Kako.” 

The room slides out of focus. Tenzou blinks a few more times, warmth trailing down his ears. He pauses at the sudden appearance of a thin white folded cloth in the blond man’s hand. 

“Here. For your eyes,” the man tells him, very gently. 

Tenzou isn’t sure whether to trust that tone, but he accepts the cloth and holds it against one cheek for a moment. It’s clean and dry and doesn’t seem to do anything but absorb what he’s leaking. 

“She probably remembers you,” he finds it important to tell Kako’s mother. “I don’t remember anything, but she told me her name.” All of it, as though she wanted him to know just in case, as though she expected...but she’s alive. They’re both alive. “She told me she thinks my name is Tenzou. I’m sure she’ll remember you.” 

Yoshino bends over and buries her face in her hands for a long, long moment. Tenzou can understand how all this might feel more than a bit overwhelming to her as much as to him. “Thank you, Tenzou,” she says at last, muffled. “I’m very glad you and Kako both survived.” 

Tenzou can only nod. Kako needs to be alive, and fear constricts his throat every time he considers how likely it is she might not have been. 

Her eyes are calmer when she looks up, focused on him. “Would it be all right if I held your hand for a moment?” 

He flinches at the idea of an adult touching him. Swallows. This is Kako’s family. If she were here now she’d want to reach out to her mother, offer some comfort. 

Slowly, Tenzou turns over his forearm and lets his hand lie open on the side of the cot, a silent answer. 

Yoshino rests her fingers there for a handful of seconds, a warm careful touch, and pulls away. It doesn’t hurt at all, which is still a surprise to Tenzou. Someone must have healed the marks from the broken glass. There’s no blood left. 

The blond man shifts his weight and Tenzou’s attention snaps there. But he doesn’t pull Tenzou away, he just smiles wide and says, “My name is Minato. I’m glad to have the chance to meet you, Tenzou.” 

It’s not a familiar name. Tenzou nods at the greeting, uncertain if he’s meant to respond or how. 

“I’m going to do everything I possibly can to protect you and Kako and her parents,” Minato promises. 

Tenzou would do that too, but will it ever be enough? If Minato means it, Tenzou supposes having help would be nice. 

Adults rarely mean anything they tell children, Tenzou has learned. 

But he nods again. It’s not like he can turn down whatever the adults here want to do. 

“Can you tell me a little more about what happened in the end?” Minato asks. 

The end, the trees and the blood and the glass. Tenzou shivers. He can’t offer any of that, he can’t fit it to words, there aren’t words for it. 

What would Kako want him to say? 

Tenzou heaves a breath. “Kako said the bandaged man kidnapped her.” That’s important, what she said, she’d want her mother to know. “She was afraid.” Hiding from him, hiding from notice...until the man noticed Tenzou. 

His throat closes. They’ll just have to ask Kako if they want to know more. 

“Thank you for sharing that, Tenzou. It will help.” Minato’s voice is gentle but his blue eyes are very, very sharp. Tenzou hopes that hard look won’t be aimed his way anytime soon. 

Yoshino hisses, a soft furious noise thankfully not meant for Tenzou either. “I can’t believe Shimura! Dozens of dead children—even in time of war some things are completely inexcusable.” 

“This should never have happened,” Minato agrees with a heavy sigh. “I can only apologize for not knowing sooner. It won’t happen again.” He turns a worried smile toward Tenzou. “Would you mind coming to live at my house for now, you and Kako and her parents? Too many people are too interested in what Danzou Shimura wanted. I can’t be certain the hospital is safe.” 

It’s the first time anyone has ever asked what Tenzou would mind as though it mattered. Don’t adults normally just give orders? “As long as Kako’s close,” Tenzou whispers, not sure whether he is accepting the invitation or bargaining. 

Minato gives a firm nod. “I can see you two shouldn’t be separated.” He aims a reassuring grin toward Yoshino. “Kushina always says we have too many guest rooms and not enough guests. She likes the part of the plan where she gets to beat up anyone who comes after the kids.” 

“She would,” Yoshino agrees with what sounds like a sigh of fond exasperation. Tenzou isn’t used to interpreting all these contradictory emotions. 

There’s a silent moment as Minato flicks a measuring blue gaze across the white room. “It will be safer to take you two now,” he decides. “I can bring Kako along as soon as her chakra is stable, and she can wake up to the people she knows best. Is that all right, Yoshino?” 

“Yes,” Yoshino agrees, with only the slightest twinge of renewed worry for Kako. She does trust Minato, Tenzou can tell. Whether that means Kako can trust him, they’ll have to wait and find out. 

Minato gives Tenzou another warm smile. “I have a skill that will let me move your cot and Yoshino and myself all at once. Don’t worry. Are you ready to go?” 

Tenzou takes a deep breath. He can’t trust any of this, can he? Why are they being so kind? Still… “If it’s the fastest way to see Kako, I’m ready,” he repeats the bargain, and sets his teeth in grim determination, waiting for…something. 

The white room vanishes in a blink, replaced by softer lights, colors, a different building. It didn’t hurt, Tenzou notices in surprise. 

He looks around. Minato and Yoshino are still at his bedside. His new surroundings seem full of strange clutter on every surface, papers but also pieces of polished wood, abandoned cups. Nothing like a lab. Orochimaru would not work here. 

That’s some small comfort. 

“Welcome to our home, Tenzou,” Minato tells him in all apparent sincerity. He strides to the door of another room long enough to say, “Kushina, guests! Let me introduce you.” 

Kushina is, apparently, a woman with bright red hair and more enthusiasm than Tenzou would have thought possible in a single person. She bounces in and wraps both her arms around Yoshino before any sort of introduction happens. “It’s going to be fine,” Kushina says firmly, “and we’ll bury anyone who tries to hurt our kids!” Another squeeze, and a looser grasp around Yoshino’s shoulders. “I have ramen, you two should probably get some before it’s gone.” 

She turns a beaming fierce smile on Tenzou, who has no idea what to do with that. 

“This is Tenzou,” Minato interjects, while he pulls Kushina in for an embrace of his own, “let’s try not to overwhelm him too much.” 

Tenzou, overwhelmed already, appreciates this. 

Kushina kneels by his cot and says more gently, “Is it okay if I give you a hug, Tenzou?” 

“Will it hurt?” Tenzou asks, wary. Not being in pain is new; he would like it to continue at least a little longer. 

“Not at all,” Kushina promises, a solemn note entering her voice. “I want to help you, I don’t ever want to hurt you. So you can always tell me if anything is too much, all right? I will only put my arm around you for one second, and then you can decide whether or not you like my hugs. Does that sound okay?” 

It’s a good bargain, if she means it. She doesn’t look offended at his uncertainty, either. Tenzou nods. 

The hug is warm, painless, lasts precisely one second, and Kushina doesn’t demand his answer right away. Tenzou will need to think about whether he wants to be that vulnerable, even when he is anyway, even if the warmth is very, very nice. 

He tries to find something to change the subject. “What’s ramen?” 

He knows the question is a mistake the moment Kushina’s face lights up in shock. “Ramen is the best food! That’s the saddest thing I ever heard,” she adds not quite under her breath to a laughing Minato. 

By the time Tenzou finishes learning about and tasting ramen, he’s decided it can’t remind him of the lab at all; from now on ramen can only ever remind him of Kushina.

* * *

Unaccustomed to keeping track of time, Tenzou only knows that it feels like an eternity before Kako’s promised arrival and that he’s awake for every long moment. 

There’s no sound to warn of the sudden change, but Yoshino drops the book she’d been trying to explain to Tenzou right to the floor and whisks across the room even faster than Kushina. 

Tenzou heaves his uncooperative body up far enough to see. Behind Yoshino stands a tall man, dark hair pulled tight to the top of his head, expression fiercely protective. Cradled in the man’s arms is a limp bundle of loose white cloth, tiny bare feet just visible. “My baby,” Yoshino whispers, bending down, her voice choked. 

A thin dark line trails down from the head tucked against the man’s shoulder. Who braided Kako’s hair? But it’s her, Tenzou is almost sure. Almost. She’s so still… 

“Is she alive?” Tenzou can’t help the shaky question, and realizes too late that he’s dragged himself half out of the cot on limbs that can’t support his weight; he’s falling. 

Before he can tip all the way over, Minato’s there, a warm hand supporting him. “She’s just fine,” he promises. “Her chakra’s stable and we expect her to wake up any minute.” The careful shove to keep Tenzou upright doesn’t hurt. “You’ll be able to see her, I haven’t forgotten, you don’t have to walk anywhere yet. Just ask if you need something.” 

Besides the desperate necessity of making sure Kako’s not dead, Tenzou isn’t sure where he’d begin to figure out what he might or might not need. 

“This is Shikaku, by the way,” Minato adds, nodding to the dark-haired man. “He’s Yoshino’s husband and Kako’s dad.” 

Tenzou can’t remember any examples to define those words, but he looks at the way Kako’s family clings together and something feels right about it. 

He can’t remember ever knowing a parent, ever missing a parent, and for a moment the fact is a sharp regret. 

Yoshino straightens and rests one hand on Shikaku’s shoulder. “There’s a bed made up for Kako in here. You’ll like Tenzou,” she tells him, “the kid’s been as worried about our girl as I have.” 

Sharp dark eyes sweep over Tenzou for the briefest moment, a slight nod, and then the focus shifts back to the quiet child in his arms. Tenzou appreciates that. 

The guest bed in question is covered with soft colorful blankets and pillows. Most importantly, it’s in the same large room as Tenzou’s cot. 

Neither Shikaku nor Yoshino want to set their daughter down, so Tenzou watches them both perform a graceful near-silent struggle over the best way to support her sleeping form between them. 

He watches Shikaku tuck a loose strand of hair tenderly behind Kako’s ear and hears him murmur under his breath, “They promised that she’s stable, but I can hardly feel her. When I think what that chakra must have felt like to Kako...” 

Equally quiet, Yoshino whispers, “She’s not going to give up now,” in an adamant tone Tenzou would expect from Kako. 

He’d like to hear any sound at all from Kako. 

Tenzou doesn’t know how to begin asking to intrude on that connection, he only needs to see Kako, he needs to know she’s alive. 

Without thinking, he finds a wordless melody in his throat, the one Kako used to begin, the one she always went back to. 

As the tune ends and his focus widens a little, he notices how still Kako’s parents have gone, their eyes shining brighter as they stare at him. Are they upset? Should he apologize? 

How does an apology even work? 

Shikaku smiles at him, though, a pained look that doesn’t seem angry. “I used to sing that to Kako,” he tells Tenzou. “I’m glad she still had that much.” 

One small comfort when none of them had anything else. Tenzou is glad, too. 

Intent on Kako’s silent form, Tenzou sees her take a deep breath and lets out his own sigh in relief. Silent, but alive. 

“Would you like to wait for her here with us for a while?” Yoshino asks. 

Tenzou jerks his eyes up, startled. What did he miss? Of course he would, but…? 

Well. “Yes,” he admits, uncertain. 

“May I pick you up and move you there?” Minato asks without making any attempt to simply grab. 

Tenzou thinks that is very strange, but also nice. “Please do,” he whispers. 

After a quick gentle transfer, he finds himself resting curled against Shikaku’s feet, close enough to reach up and hold Kako’s hand. 

Her fingers are cold but the thrum of her blood is steady. Tenzou squeezes once, to prove he’s alive too. 

“Deer heart,” Shikaku sighs, a gust of wind. Then he sings. It’s the same melody that Kako used so often, but vastly different from an adult voice, without the muffling effects of the tubes. There are words; Tenzou never knew there were words. “ _Let me tell you, my darling, my sweet, of places and spaces to make your heart beat…_ ” 

The song is familiar and strange at once, a comfort and a reminder that Tenzou knows nothing in the world except the lab that held him trapped. 

“ _The stag calls in autumn with the sound of his bellows, and the leaves on the trees turn to reds and to yellows._ ” He’d like to know. They’re alive, he and Kako, they’re free of the glass. Maybe he can see that with her, someday. 

“ _These are the spaces, where wild deer roam, these are the places you may call your home..._ ” Whatever a home is, Kako deserves the very best. Tenzou suspects her parents would agree. 

Shikaku comes to the end of the song, bends his head over Kako, and starts again without pausing for conversation. This time Tenzou hums along, a rough faltering counterpart. 

He tells himself that Kako will hum back, eventually. She always has. She’s alive. She’ll be okay. 

At last, uncountable verses later, Shikaku goes silent mid-word. Another small voice takes up the song, tune pausing for a quiet yawn. 

“Kako!” Tenzou calls, soft and urgent, to remind her they can actually speak now. Remind her that she has a name, that he’s here too. 

Her eyes struggle to open. “Tenzou?” she says in a confused slur. 

Yoshino leans in to kiss her cheek, eyes bright. “Sweetheart,” she says, “you’re safe now.” 

Kako freezes at the touch, blinking rapidly, then flings her arms around her mother’s neck as Shikaku embraces them both. “You’re alive!” she exclaims with heartbreaking relief. “Mum—Daddy—” 

Tenzou winces. Endless time trapped in glass reminding herself who she was, and she’d never been sure of that? 

“Your mother knows a trap when she sees one,” Shikaku tells her, old anger weary in his voice. “Evidence said Kumo was trying to cover for a kidnap attempt, but all the trails went nowhere. If they led to Danzo Shimura, it explains why.” 

Kako nods, sitting back and reaching for Tenzou. He doesn’t mind taking orders from her; he slips his hand back into hers. “He told me I might as well forget about you, because you were dead,” she reports with a cold satisfied fury. 

Shikaku’s smile is equally cold. “I see how well you listened to him. That’s my good girl.” He swallows, face shifting. “Do you remember why they took you?” 

“Orochimaru said my chakra hypersensitivity was scientifically interesting,” Kako reports, voice rough as gravel but undaunted, stumbling only a little on the words. “He said it was a shame he could only test one theory.” 

“Really,” Minato says. “Thank you, Kako, I find that very helpful.” 

Kako adds, with a dark scowl, “Danzou told him that since I couldn’t be a shinobi, the experiment wouldn’t be any loss to Konoha.” 

The precision implies to Tenzou that Kako’s been holding on to those exact words for a very, very long time. As she lets them out, the adults all go stone-faced, but Kako sighs with long relief and smiles at Tenzou. “You’re okay! I was worried.” 

Tenzou squeezes her hand. “I’m glad you woke up,” he replies. 

She looks up at her parents, falters in a moment’s confusion over Minato, gives them all a wide-eyed look. “You’re going to protect Tenzou, right? He deserves...better.” The memory of despair passes over her face like a shadow. 

“You both do, sweetheart,” Yoshino murmurs, comfortingly. “We’ll protect you both.” 

Kako sniffles, tugs Tenzou closer so she can wrap one arm around his shoulder and still cling to her mother. “I...I didn’t think anyone would believe me,” she admits, and crumples into quiet tears. 

To help Kako, Tenzou can’t mind the warm close hold at all. If she trusts them, then it’s probably okay. None of these people have hurt him at all yet. 

Across the room Minato smiles at them all. “If it helps,” he tells them in a voice of pure determination, “I promise I’ll always do my best to listen to any of you. Konoha’s children all deserve better.” 

Kako heaves a sob, but she lifts her head long enough to return a wavering smile. 

 

(a/n: of course this song is from the [sidestory with Yoshino](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7898335/17/Sunshine-Sidestories) by Silver Queen!)

* * *

Kako thinks it might be about three days into their recovery, both children still confined to beds, when the Hokage drags a reluctant teenager into the house. 

The Hokage, who is Minato, which baffles her every time she tries to think about it. 

“I’d like you to meet my student, Kakashi,” Minato says with insistent cheerfulness, either spoiled or explained by Kakashi’s stiff posture and unenthusiastic tiny wave. 

Kako would recognize Kakashi at once even if Minato hadn’t introduced him. Most of her memories feel badly blurred, but the silver hair and the cloth mask over the young man’s mouth and nose are hard to miss. Important. Connected. She’s happy to see him, though she can’t quite think why. 

“This is Kako,” Minato tells the masked boy, probably just so the kids don’t feel like everyone has been talking about them as much as everyone totally has. “And this is Tenzou.” 

Where Kako has the strength to smile and wave and prop herself up on one elbow, Tenzou hardly does, twitching one hand and managing a slow puzzled blink. 

“What’s wrong with him?” Kakashi asks, proving that he has zero manners. Kako snorts under her breath. 

Minato somehow manages not to roll his eyes at his rude student; Kako’s impressed. “Chakra exhaustion. Be nice, Kakashi.” 

Although Tenzou used up every bit of strength he had trying to get to Kako, he’ll be fine once he has a chance to recover. On the other hand, Kako herself is a little better off physically after the chakra infusions, but the medics and adults have all told Kako that what she did was very dangerous and probably should have killed her and should not be repeated until she’s older and much better trained. 

She already knew that, but it’s nice that they’re on top of things. 

It had been hard work trying to trigger the tree roots she could feel into what she knows Mokuton should be capable of, massive chakra absorption. She hadn’t managed to pull quite all of it into the wood. Kako’s tiny chakra coils definitely didn’t appreciate her attempts. 

Well, she had known and accepted the risks. Anything would have been better than letting Danzou win. She’s frankly surprised the medics managed to stabilize her at all, and more that they seem cautiously optimistic about her future career as a ninja. Happy, but surprised. 

“I need you to look after them for a couple of hours,” Minato says, “you can read them a book if you like. I’ll be right down the hall in my office if you need me.” 

Kakashi slumps as if to make it very clear that reading to children is a waste of his skill set, but he nods to the Hokage’s order. 

Beside her, Tenzou is wide-eyed with worry, but Kako is pretty sure she can make Kakashi look less intimidating. 

If Minato thinks his student ought to spend more time with small children, Kako doesn’t mind playing along with that plan. As awkward as Kakashi is, it’s kind of nice to hear answers that aren’t softened to toddler-like consistency. 

By the time he leaves, Kako has managed to work a conversation about training around to ask about his dogs and receives a pat on the head for her trouble. She catches Kakashi’s hand long enough to squeeze gently. 

She tells Minato that she likes his student, and Tenzou gives the tiniest of nods. Minato, with a twinkle in his blue eyes, tells them that he’s sure Kakashi can find the time to come back.

* * *

By the time anyone talks about the matter openly, Kako has already guessed the current state of the family. Her mother and Kushina are both pregnant and both very happy about it. 

Kako’s mother brings up the subject of an expected baby brother with extreme delicacy, pausing several times to ask how Kako feels. 

What Kako feels is primarily a deep inexpressible relief. In spite of everything that happened to Shikaku’s family because of her presence, it looks like Shikamaru and Naruto are still going to be classmates. 

Secondly, a strong concern about time. She can’t talk to her parents about either of these. 

“I always thought a brother would be neat, and now I’ll have two!” Kako chirps. Of course she doesn’t think her parents were trying to replace her, but she’s determined not to let Tenzou think of himself as some kind of intruder. 

She includes Tenzou in every single babbling plan for the new baby: “Tenzou and I can sing to him! By then Tenzou and I should both be strong enough to hold him, right?” Her parents aid and abet her plots. 

Finally the stiff worried expression on Tenzou’s face starts to relax. Kako knows she’s won when he says one day, “Kako and I could make toys for the baby if we worked at it, don’t you think?”

* * *

Little Kako Kinokawa shouldn’t even be out of bed the first time she appears in Minato’s home office, at his elbow, small face solemn and pale. 

“Sit down,” he exclaims, worried that she’ll faint and everyone will blame him. “Is something wrong?” 

She sits on the floor with a thump and peers at him. There’s a pause. “You said you’d listen,” she reminds him. “Did you mean it?” 

“I’ll do my best,” he can only repeat the promise. “What do you need to talk about?” 

Her face twists. “I’m not sure,” she admits like she’s ashamed of a defeat. “Something is wrong, something is going to be wrong?” Kako’s nose wrinkles and she shakes her head. “I don’t know if I overheard it, or if I remember anything right.” She looks up at him, eyes wide with worried appeal. “If someone really strong attacked, could you fight him?” 

Kako’s never heard the battlefield reports of the Yellow Flash or watched the Hokage fight, so it only makes sense she’d doubt him. “I’m stronger than I look,” he tries to reassure her lightly. 

It only makes the lines of worry in her tiny forehead go deeper; she blinks at him. “What if someone knows how strong you are and attacks Kushina-sama instead?” Her voice falters. 

Neither of the kidnapped kids have been told anything about the Kyuubi since they got free. Mentioning Kushina is specific enough that Minato can’t dismiss the warning from a child who’s been locked in a den of traitors ever since she disappeared. And he did promise. 

He leans forward. “If you can tell me a little about the enemy, maybe I can tell you how I would fight them.” 

Whether Kako is remembering details or only her own nightmares, he hopes it might help her to talk about them. No harm in making some extra battle plans or evacuation plans, either. 

“If someone as strong as Madara Uchiha attacked, what would you do?” 

Minato relaxes a little bit. Madara was the villain of the children’s book Yoshino had read aloud over the last few nights, not an immediate danger. But he doesn’t dismiss the threat. With Mokuton a former story and obvious reality, it’s all too possible that someone has been messing with Sharingan as well in ways he hasn’t yet found. 

“The trick to fighting a Sharingan is not to look the opponent in the eye,” he offers one basic strategy. “I don’t have to look in order to get myself and Kushina away from the battle.” 

Kako nods in serious thought, a tiny adorable impersonation of her father. “But Madara fought someone who used teleporting tactics, right? What if by now he’s learned to make himself as fast as that?” 

Charmed by her determination to figure out actual battle plans, Minato smiles. “I’m sure I can still beat him, but maybe you can help make sure I won’t forget anything.” 

For a while, Minato thinks of these conversations as giving Kako reassurance. He’ll listen, he’ll protect her and her family, even from the very scariest villains of a bright wounded child’s imagination. The Hokage doesn’t have a lot of free time, but he can usually spare a shadow clone to this kind of low-risk game. 

It’s fun, working out seals and strategies to satisfy her questions, sometimes bringing Kushina in to consult. 

Later, when he’s fighting a deadly foe faster than Hiraishin with Sharingan eyes, he’ll be grateful for the plans they made. 

Later, when he comes home to Kushina cuddling Naruto and buries his hands in her red hair and greets his son properly, he’ll be desperately relieved for all the times Kushina made his plans and seals trickier and more effective. 

Later, when Kako clings tighter to him than she ever has before, he’ll say, “Thank you.” 

...

Much later, when Kako turns up in his office again and mutters, “So, uh, if someone brought dead people back to life to fight you, could you beat them?” he will hand her a book of his own notes. 

It’s time she learned seals and helped with these plans.

**Author's Note:**

> Hvdra00 drew [beautiful art](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19070653) for me that you shouldn't miss!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Listen](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19070653) by [hvdra00](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hvdra00/pseuds/hvdra00)
  * [[Podfic] Children of the Leaf](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20876132) by [Narial](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narial/pseuds/Narial)
  * [Children of the Leaf [Fanart]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21804175) by [Fiobri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fiobri/pseuds/Fiobri)




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